It's Mike Trout and It's Not That Close

For the fourth consecutive year -- indeed, for the only four years of his career -- Mike Trout will finish in the top two in the MVP race. Also for the fourth time, he should finish first, ahead of a star with bigger traditional numbers. And for the third time, he might finish second.

Josh Donaldson has produced a monster season for the Blue Jays, hitting .298 with 41 homers and a league-leading 123 RBI. He's scored a league-pacing 122 runs too. His OBP-SLG of .373/.571 places him second in the AL in OPS.

Behind Mike Trout, whose .299-41-90 with 104 runs scored and a .400-.588 OBP-SLG gives him 44 points more of OPS.

Here's the comparison, with league-leading numbers in bold.
Trout            .299-41-90   104R .402/.590/.992 176 OPS+ .353 TAv
Donaldson  .297-41-123 122R .370/.569/.939 155 OPS+ .323 TAv

In other words, Donaldson leads in team events because he bats in the middle of that historically-potent Blue Jays lineup. Trout leads in measures of individual excellence.

Both are superb base runners who have not applied that to base stealing. Donaldson has swiped all six of his attempts. Trout, once a 40-steal guy, is just 11 of 18. That's a ding against Trout.

Both light up the web gems highlight reel. Donaldson is generally considered even more special at his position than Trout is at his, but Trout plays the more critical CF to Donaldson's hot corner.

Factoring in their ballparks and strength of opposing pitchers, Trout has produced 8.7 offensive wins for his team, 13% more than Donaldson's 7.7, according to Baseball Reference. Baseball Prospectus has the gap even wider, and rates Trout the better fielder too.

Sentiment had shifted toward Donaldson as he and Toronto heated up while Trout and the Of Anaheims cooled in August. But the tables turned some in September/October as Trout humped it up and his team hung in the playoff race until the last day. Of course, the performance of his teammates should be of no consequence to a player's MVP candidacy: it's not up to him whether the nine wins he adds are wins 71-79 or wins 87-95.

So a voter could cast his vote for Josh Donaldson for 2015 AL MVP and that would be a perfectly reasonable choice. No one could argue that Donaldson didn't deserve it for the quantum leap he's taken this year following his shocking trade from Oakland. It's just that Trout is clearly the better candidate, not by a significant margin, but by enough that everyone ought to recognize it.